


Cenacolo

by kishafisha



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Werecreatures, Blood and Gore, M/M, Murder Family, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Post-Episode: s02e13 Mizumono, individual chapter warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:21:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25439893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kishafisha/pseuds/kishafisha
Summary: A normal relationship might have been marked by a series of conversations and shared experiences, a collection of vignettes both significant and mundane that pieced together the chassis of a bond. When Will considered the knotted framework of his history with Hannibal Lecter, he instead recalled those markers as meals. A sordid menu of splintered bone and ragged flesh. But then...that was to be expected, for Will hadn’t been afforded the luxury of a normal life.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 12
Kudos: 56
Collections: Hannigram A/B/O Reverse Bang 2020





	1. Crescente

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Biting Down](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25431460) by [TigerPrawn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerPrawn/pseuds/TigerPrawn). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So late in the day, but it’s still the 21st somewhere! I was lucky enough to get paired with TigerPrawn for the Hannigram A/B/O Reverse Bang and wow, if you haven’t watched the fan vid yet, you should stop and do that first. I was originally inspired to write something completely different, but then after rewatching Hannibal on Netflix and another dozen views of that fan vid, I suddenly changed my mind and was inspired to write this instead.
> 
> I tried to write this sort of as a direct sequel to the fan vid (which, again, is why you should have watched it first), which makes it post-Mizumono. You’ll also notice that I’ve pulled some dialog directly from Primavera. Many thanks to TigerPrawn for being amazing (and patient) and to my beta/sounding board ravenfyre for being the other half of my brain.
> 
> Additional chapter warnings can be found in the end notes, but may contain spoilers!
> 
> The title comes from the Italian title of da Vinci’s “Last Supper”.

A normal relationship might have been marked by a series of conversations and shared experiences, a collection of vignettes both significant and mundane that pieced together the chassis of a bond. When Will considered the knotted framework of his history with Hannibal Lecter, he instead recalled those markers as meals. A sordid menu of splintered bone and ragged flesh. But then...that was to be expected, for Will hadn’t been afforded the luxury of a normal life.

“The moon...is it full?” Abigail wondered, her pale face turned up toward the light of it.

“Tomorrow,” Will replied gruffly, not daring to gaze up at it. Instead he looked only at it’s cast upon her face and what little of her neck was uncovered by the scarf she wore. Of course, it was just as dangerous to pay consideration to the fragile column of her throat.

“Is it safe for you to be out like this?” she asked, looking at him curiously, without fear. 

Fear had been bled from her long before now. From both of them.

“No,” he told her honestly and was sure his eyes would be catching the light were he not wearing his glasses. Reflecting a warning to his prey that all was not as it should be. “But the moon makes little difference at this point.”

She hummed in answer and turned her too knowing gaze to the moonlit architecture instead, the darkened streets a subdued hush about them. The city was a curious amalgam of its storied history; a fusion of aesthetics left behind by conquering nations, interspersed with an assault of modern concrete. Careful restorations of architecture far older than their country of origin neighbored hastily salvaged ruins and the eclectic blend of Sicilian, Byzantine, Baroque, Norman and Arabic styles made the city feel both chaotic and elegant.

Little wonder that Hannibal had found it so compelling.

“I read Palermo’s supposed to have been the most conquered city in the world, but I’m pretty sure it will still be here in the morning.”

“That’s what you think,” Will replied and smiled very slightly when this elicited a laugh. “I just...need to see it tonight. I don’t want to wait.”

A sympathetic fondness came to her wide, blue eyes, one that Will could  _ feel _ , though he refused to look at her. “Do you think that he’ll be there?”

He didn’t, not really, not after all this time. But some part of Will  _ hoped _ that he would, which was far worse. “You don’t have to come with me.”

“You know that isn’t true,” she told him gently and though there was a stark candor in her tone, it was not unkind. They walked in silence for another block before she spoke again, her tone lighter. “An American werewolf in Sicily… What do you want to bet that will be the title Freddie uses if she finds out you’re here?”

A low growl rumbled in Will’s chest at the thought of Freddie Lounds, though he was privately glad for the change in subject. “Are you trying to  _ incite _ violence?”

Grinning impishly, Abigail laughed again and gave him a teasing, knowing look as they walked along the promenade, the  _ Palazzo dei Normanni  _ looming higher as they neared. The spotlights illuminating the facade made it seem somehow unreal, as though it were some elaborate prop erected solely as a backdrop to their foolhardy quest. And it  _ was  _ foolhardy, for there was nothing sensible about their being here now.

“There’s security,” Abigail pointed out as they stopped just outside beyond the well lit courtyard, nodding toward a uniformed man idly walking the perimeter. She needn’t have bothered. Will could hear the man, along with several others, and the beat of their hearts was horrifically enticing. “Do you think they’ll have cameras? Alarms? Laser traps?”

“You’ve watched too many movies. They may still use the palace for Parliament, but it’s a historical site.”

“You’ve watched too few. Can I say that we’re casing the joint? We are, aren’t we? You’re going to break in there.” Will glanced at her, but didn’t answer right away, long enough for her to make up her mind. “I’m going to look inside.”

“Abigail!” Will hissed, but didn’t follow when she jogged fearlessly across the courtyard. Looking back at him as she reached one of the doors, Abigail gave him a cheeky wave, then vanished straight through it. “Dammit.”

At least there was one advantage to being a ghost.

Hands fisting at his sides, Will shoved them into his pockets and wisely continued on his walk, knowing Abigail would catch up to him when she was through. Even if someone had enough metaphysical awareness to see her, they’d hardly raise a fuss. Cities old as this were filled with the dead.

Will, on the other hand, would be arrested and aggressively deported if he were caught. A man walking alone in the middle of the night was one thing, but standing there glaring at a foreign Parliament was beyond careless for a  _ human _ , much less a werewolf who’d entered the country illegally. He wasn’t even certain what rights non-humans had in Sicily. Western European governments were typically known to be more accepting of non-humans, particularly weres, but Vatican City was less than three hundred miles away.

The Catholic Church was hardly a beacon of tolerance.

Will hardly remembered a time when he didn’t have to take such things into consideration, having been a werewolf for the last twelve years. Ever since he’d been bitten in the backstreets of New Orleans while investigating a noise complaint. Well…’bitten’ was the word the social worker had used a week later when he’d roused from an induced coma to find himself chained to a hospital bed. In truth, the feral wolf who turned him had nearly severed his right arm at the socket as it savaged him. He’d only survived because his partner shot it, sparking the creature’s ire. When their backup arrived, Will had been taken to the hospital, his partner to the morgue.

The Other World, as the media coined it, had only been public for a decade by that point, forcibly outed in a bizarre turn by the Democratic hopeful for the Louisiana Senate. What began as national outcry turned quickly to a subdued wave of support after the two hundred and seventy year old vampire was slain weeks later on live television, sparking the first wave of non-human legislation. The rest of the world had been slow to follow, or to even admit the existence of the Other World, until the Eastern Bloc inexplicably acknowledged the presence of non-humans three years later. From there it spread like wildfire, for good or ill.

By the time Will had to register as a non-human, he had no need to concern himself with his rights to property or access to healthcare, but he could no longer serve as a member of the NOPD. He used his severance and the meager government stipend from his unwilling transformation to go back to school, and by the time he’d graduated, the FBI had finalized their new, ‘inclusive’ employment criteria. A non-human would never rise beyond Special Agent, but at least Will’s life had finally started to feel like it was getting back on track.

Until Jack Crawford inserted Hannibal Lecter into it.

“He wasn’t there,” Abigail reported a short while later when she’d caught up to him. Her hair was pulled back now, revealing a ruined mound of scar tissue where her left ear should have been. Will had learned that it usually manifested this way whenever she was thinking about Hannibal.

“He has no reason to be,” Will replied gruffly. “How was it?”

“The chapel?” She considered her response before answering with a neutral, “It was pretty.”

Will took this to mean, ‘It was extravagant and excessively decadent, in direct contrast to what my Midwestern upbringing tells me a chapel should be,’ and snorted softly in amusement.

“I’m sure.”

“They open it for tours during the day. I found a pamphlet. We could go look for him then.”

“I’m not looking for him, Abigail,” Will sighed in frustration, feeling suddenly exhausted.

“So you just spent three weeks sailing across the Atlantic, alone, to  _ sightsee _ with  _ zero _ ulterior motive.”

“I like Italian food. And I wasn’t alone.”

“Ghosts don’t count. Why can’t you admit that we’re looking for Hannibal?”

“Because he didn’t  _ want _ us!”

The shout was too loud in the quiet street, reverberating incriminatingly off stone and mortar as they both stopped to stare at one another. The words cut at them both and even as Will watched, Abigail’s appearance changed again, blood soaking onto her shirt the way it had on the night of her death. The night Will had killed her.

The scar on his abdomen felt tight to see her this way and he lowered his voice once more. “He’s known where we were, Abigail. For the last eight months he’s known  _ exactly _ where to find us.”

“To find  _ you _ , you mean,” she interjected, her voice small.

“To find us,” he insisted, stepping closer to her. “You told me he’d given you his blood, that he’d fed from you. If I...if I had trusted him, you would be alive.”

“Not in the strictest sense of the word.” She managed a slight smile that warmed as much as wounded for the forgiveness in it. “You tried to save me.”

“I  _ ate _ you, Abigail.”

“Twice, even,” she teased, trying for levity, then sighed at the stricken look on his face. “Will, you tried to turn me as I was dying. You couldn’t have known that Hannibal had been trying to turn me, too.”

That was true, he couldn’t have known. Hadn’t even considered the possibility that Abigail was still alive before that moment. Yet as Hannibal left them bleeding on his kitchen floor, Will had pulled himself over to her with a single-minded determination not to lose her again. He’d never tried to force the change so desperately as he had in that moment, but in rousing his wolf, he’d lost control completely. By the time the police had arrived on scene, Will was completely feral, slipping in his blood and Abigail’s as he tried to claw his way into the pantry, to the feebly beating heart he could hear within. It had taken two tranquilizers to bring him down.

Lucky he’d gone for Jack instead of Alana.

Considering the damage that Will had withstood in his own turning, it was possible that Abigail might have similarly survived how he ravaged her...but not with vampiric blood already lying dormant within her. Even whole and healthy, no human had ever managed to survive the strain of housing two separate viruses from the Other World. Her frail human body, cut open and mauled as it was, had no chance. Hannibal and Will’s haphazard attempts to turn her had instead secured her death.

_ ‘We’re her fathers now, Will.’ _

“I need to let you go,” Will whispered softly, though he wasn’t entirely sure if he was speaking to the ghost before him or the one in his mind.

“That isn’t how this works,” Abigail reminded him. “It’s about my unfinished business, not yours.”

“But you’re tied to me. I should be helping you.”

“I’m tied to you because you killed me, but do you really think I wouldn’t want to be here otherwise?” she asked incredulously. “Hannibal’s important to  _ me _ , too. You both are.”

Will wished suddenly that he could hold her, though physical affection had never been his brand of care. “I’m glad you’re here,” he admitted softly instead and her face lit up.

“Good. Come on...we should go back to the boat. You’ll need some rest if we’re going back in the morning.”

He nodded, though Will doubted he’d be doing much sleep. His dreams were haunted even more than his waking hours, and by far less pleasant company. They returned to the marina on the seedier side of town, one where pockets could be padded in place of papers presented. It was a gamble whether or not the  _ Nola _ would remain unspoiled any time he stepped out of sight of her modest lines, but the risk he’d taken in flashing his eyes at the dock master on arrival appeared to have conveyed his message well enough. Pale in the moonlight, the  _ Nola _ solemnly awaited their return, untouched in their absence.

Or maybe not.

Will’s steps slowed on the dock as he caught sight of a shape sitting on the deck, a small, squat shadow that he knew hadn’t been there before. Looking back at him questioning when he stopped altogether, Abigail followed his gaze and gasped softly when she saw what he’d been looking at.

“I’ll check it out,” she said softly, as though she might be overheard, and jogged soundlessly down the dock to the boat. She couldn’t cross even the small gap without the gangway in place - ghosts could not openly traverse moving water - but she leaned over to peer at it, her eyesight still bound within human limits. Looking back at Will, she waved him over with a nod. “I think it’s fine. It’s a bag…” She hesitated and her voice lifted an octave in hope. “I think it might be insulated.”

Hesitating for a moment longer, Will finally followed after her, his senses cast wide, though the world around him seemed to be coming in static now. Halting beside her, he cast his gaze about slowly, taking in the night with an analytical eye, though he knew he’d find nothing. Hannibal wouldn’t grant him the satisfaction, not when he could torture him a while longer. He leapt across the small gap to the deck and retrieved his gangway, laying it out for Abigail to come aboard before removing it again. Leaving it out would be an invitation.

Will had no intention of inviting a vampire onto his boat.

Though it meant he’d have to bribe the dock master again in the morning, Will removed his mooring lines and prepared to cast off, not giving the bag a second glance all the while. It was petty, petulant even, but Will refused to acknowledge its presence while Hannibal might be able to see him. What he  _ wanted _ to do was kick the damn thing into the Mediterranean and be done with it, but...he couldn’t.

Abigail crouched beside the bag and watched him silently as he cautiously steered the boat out into the night, the sky and water merging into a dark void about them. Once they were far enough away for Will to be certain he was out of Hannibal’s view, he cut the engine and went to the bag, glaring at it in silent accusation. Though he’d known the vampire would be unable to board the  _ Nola _ without his invitation, Will hadn’t anticipated that Hannibal might simply reach across and leave him a gift. Or a warning.

After eight months of silence between them, the gesture was infuriating in its volume.

“Will-“ Abigail began when her patience ran dry, but he cut her off.

“I know. Damn it, I know,” he growled in frustration and snatched up the bag.

Food or viscera? Unzipping it with as much irritation as he could muster at the mundane task, he flipped back the top to reveal a covered ceramic dish and a small thermos. Food. His nostrils flared as he breathed in the aroma of eggs and sausage; tepid, but not yet cold.

“A little protein scramble to start the day,” Will murmured darkly, swallowing when his mouth watered traitorously.

“He made you breakfast for dinner,” Abigail said fondly, peering into the bag with a smile.

Without a word, Will turned and stomped down into the cabin below, tossing the bag carelessly onto the small table before pulling off his jacket. Abigail peered down at him from the hatch, then sat herself on a stair, clasping her hands around her knees to watch him throw his tantrum.

“He gave you food...that’s good, isn’t it?”

“Most alphas would find it insulting,” Will snapped, not so much sitting down as slumping heavily into his seat. “An insinuation that they were incapable of producing their own meal.”

“You’re not most alphas,” she pointed out.

That was true. Will hadn’t even known about his secondary gender for nearly a year after being turned. When his social worker had come to explain his new status to him in the hospital, it had been to expound upon his rights as a non-human citizen and discuss the dangers now associated with the phases of the moon. This was because the development of secondary genders was the best and worst kept secret of the Other World.

A horrified Will had assumed that the change in how he perceived the rest of the world - inexplicably butting heads with some while subconsciously protecting others - was due to his newfound lycanthropy. Worse of all was how occasionally a scent would get him hard so hard he’d find himself rutting against the seam of his pants and how sometimes when he came, the base of his cock would swell grotesquely. Will had been on the verge of giving up his attempt at normalcy and dropping out of college when a wererat had confronted him one day after class, hissing, “Get some scent blockers, asshole!”

It had taken some time for Piotr, the rat, to believe Will’s ignorance, but once he’d realized that Will was genuinely clueless, he reluctantly explained it all to him. Alpha, beta and omega...the genders of the Other World. To those lucky enough to be Born as they were, it was simply a way of life, but to the Turned...it was a steep learning curve. Most of the Turned were fortunate in that it was rare for them to become anything other than beta, but Will’s life was predictable in its abnormality.

Suppressants and scent blockers had gotten him through the rest of his schooling without incident and Will lived as close to human as he could manage, ignoring all those parts that were not of the norm. And as if it were a game, Hannibal had slowly and thoroughly torn away all of his defenses.

“What do you suppose I would have been if I turned?” Abigail asked, watching as Will pulled out the dish and uncovered it to sniff at the contents. “Human?”

“No,” Will decided after a few moments. “Pork.”

She nodded idly, as though the very possibility that it might be human flesh weren’t reprehensible. “Maybe I would have been an alpha. Like you and Hannibal.”

“It isn’t inherited,” Will grumbled, jabbing at the scramble and shoving a forkful of egg and sausage into his mouth.

Tact was something he had come to wield as a weapon in learning from Hannibal, which is why he had no intention of telling Abigail that her will wasn’t strong enough to be an alpha. She was adept in her own brand of manipulation, but she bent too easily to a mind stronger than her own, adapting to ensure her survival above all else. Qualities that were textbook beta.

Then again...who in the Other World would have expected an alpha to be an empath?

“That bad?” Abigail asked quietly, watching Will as he angrily chewed over his food.

“It’s delicious,” he growled in consternation and took another bite.

The first meal Hannibal had ever prepared for him had been presented as an olive branch, one that tipped just far enough toward apologetic that Will hadn’t bothered to consider any ill intent. Even now, Will didn’t really believe that the ingredients of their first meal had been anything more than they appeared to be. Though Hannibal could, at times, favor the chaotic over the sensible, Will rather thought that flying human sausage links more than twelve hundred miles to prepare in a hotel kitchenette was a bit much. Even if Hannibal’s Minnesotan lodging had no doubt possessed significantly more stars and higher ratings than what Federal Travel Regulations had afforded Will.

The true intent of that meal, on the other hand, was another story altogether.

Whether whimsy or curiousity, Hannibal had decided to ingratiate himself to Will after their first fateful encounter and his first meal had been a direct reflection of that. It hardly surprised Will, well used to his unique brand of empathy being the unwilling focus of anyone with half an interest in the workings of the mind. He had, in fact, been completely willing to dismiss Hannibal as such...and suspected that indifference had been utterly intolerable to the man. ‘Man’ being a relative term.

Will had known Hannibal to be non-human from the moment he’d walked into Jack’s office, could sense the presence of another predator, but it had taken a little longer to realize that Jack did not. That, in fact, Jack had sought Hannibal Lecter’s aid after reaching the limit of his tolerance for Will’s true nature without realizing he’d be asking one non-human to discern the humanity of another. After the prejudices he’d faced in his own turning, Will never even considered outing the truth of Hannibal’s nature. At least, not until it was far too late.

In the end, if Hannibal’s first meal had been meant to curry favor, what did this reiteration imply?

The question lingered in Will’s mind as he toured the Norman Chapel the next day, after he’d surrendered another small portion of his savings to safely moor the  _ Nola  _ once more. Wisely, the man had not argued to raise the price, though Will would have paid regardless. With the full moon pulling at the wolf even now, he was sure his demeanor did not invite negotiation.

Even Abigail kept her banter to a minimum as they toured together, though she, at least, was in high spirits. It was clear enough that she still didn’t understand why he’d come, if not to see Hannibal. An acknowledgment so soon after their arrival, a  _ gift _ no less, should have been welcome. Yet even now, standing in the foyer of Hannibal’s mind palace, Will wasn’t sure why he’d come.

A concerto of languages entangled in an assortment of timbre and tempo rang throughout the chapel’s interior and Will found himself glad for the limits of his linguistic comprehension. The babble of sound fell unheeded to the very back of his thoughts, blissfully unexamined. It made the interior seem quieter than it was, affording them their own measure of privacy among tourists both devout and ambivalent.

“Even living hand in hand with the Other World, so many still come here to feel closer to God,” Will murmured.

Abigail drew her eyes away from one of the mosaics to look at him curiously, more than willing to talk now that he’d broken the terse silence of his foul mood. “Do you feel closer to God?”

Will scoffed slightly in answer, not bothering to disguise his conversation with her. Houses of worship were one of the few places one could be seen talking to themselves without scrutiny. “God’s not who I came here to find.”

“Do you  _ believe _ in God?” she pressed, sounding uncertain of her own stance. Will imagined the thought weighed heavy on her, faced as she was with the uncertainty of what awaited her when she finally moved on.

He shook his head slightly, no more concrete in his own beliefs at nearly twice her age. “What I believe is closer to science fiction than anything in the Bible.”

“It wasn’t that long ago that werewolves were considered science fiction,” she mused. “But I’m pretty sure I don’t remember any mention of them there.”

“The king of Babylon begs to differ.”

This amused Abigail and she smiled impishly as she returned to her study of the church and its occupants. The smile waned somewhat as she focused in on those praying about them and she cast her voice low, as though afraid of being overheard.

“We all know, but no one ever says,” she began, the frustration clear in her. “God won’t do a goddamned thing to answer anybody’s prayers.”

Will wondered what it was Abigail had once prayed for, whether she still did so even now. “I’m sure answering prayers can be complicated, otherwise He would do it all the time. God can’t save any of us because it’s inelegant.”

She gave him a doubtful look at this. “God allows bad things to happen because it’s...elegant.”

“More elegant than stopping the universe to prevent an earthquake, put out a fire, cure cancer. Elegance is more important than suffering,” Will said, bitterness creeping into his tone. “That's His design.”

“You talking about God or Hannibal?”

Scoffing, Will shook his head in wry amusement at the very idea. “Hannibal’s not God. Wouldn’t have any fun being God,” he pointed out. “ _ Defying  _ God, now  _ that’s _ his idea of a good time.” He gestured up toward the highest dome, his eyes drifting over the gilded murals of saints and apostles. “Nothing would thrill Hannibal more than to see this roof collapse mid-Mass. Packed pews, choir singing… He would just love it. And he thinks God would love it, too.”

Following his gaze, Abigail’s lips pursed slightly in displeasure. “If that’s the sort of God whose judgement I’ll be facing, I don’t know that I want to move on.” They sat for a while amid prayers and photographs before she asked, “Is it what you expected?”

“I’ll never fully know what to expect from Hannibal,” he admitted. “But this place is what he sees when he steps inside the frescoed walls of his own mind.”

“Do you feel closer to him here?”

Shaking his head, Will sighed softly. “This isn’t Hannibal, it’s just where he begins. Beyond this - far and complex, light and dark - is the vast structure of his mind. A thousand rooms...miles of corridors. Everything he remembers, wonderfully and fearfully constructed.”

“Is that why you had to see it? To get a glimpse inside Hannibal’s mind?” Abigail asked, her eyes sharp, but guileless. Her inquisitive mind was one of the first things that truly drew Will to her, beyond the simple paternal instincts that saving her had evoked. It also, at times, made him resent her.

“He spent long enough in mine,” he said, a defensive edge to the words still built from the months he had spent trying to convince his friends and colleagues of his innocence.

She leaned a little closer to Will as though in solidarity, though it only served to make him cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Warnings: Mention of past character death (Abigail), mentions of murder (Will, Hannibal and unnamed others), mentions of cannibalism both canon and werewolf related (it’s not technically cannibalism when they aren’t the same species, but you know what I mean), cannibalism between characters (Will and Abigail), sacrilegious themes, body horror, A/B/O related body horror, Alpha/Alpha pairing, and themes of prejudice against non-humans.


	2. Plenilunio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um...hi. So when I posted RE:Humanize the other day I noticed that this was showing up as incomplete. Because I’d only posted half the fic. Since no one had really called me out on it, I thought, “Fuck it, might as well edit the second half now.” And then I ended up adding a whole other section in the middle, so now? Three parts. Hope that makes up for the lateness! Please forgive me, it’s 2020 and we’re all losing our minds.
> 
> Don’t forget to check chapter warnings in the end notes if you need them, but as always, they may contain spoilers.

_ Tregua Della Luna  _ bore a facade that had been constructed within the last twenty years, but stepping inside made it clear that the structure was far older than it appeared. At least to a were. Older buildings had a scent to them, a passage of infinite bodies over stone blending together until there was no longer any sense of the natural. In human structures Will and his wolf found this grating, but in a were den it proved a comfort, even when the den was unfamiliar.

This was the third were den Will had visited since leaving the Norman Chapel, the moon’s call growing stronger as the sun passed slowly overhead, inexorably creeping toward the horizon. They could be found in every major city, their presence secretive or publicized depending on the favorability, and legality, of non-humans. Here in Palermo they were discreet, but not to the point that Will was unable to seek them out. There were common markers in the Other World, if one knew where to look.

Witches were perhaps the most obvious, as humans had been used to the idea of their existence for longer - if as a religion or hobby rather than as a species - and their spaces were marked with broomsticks, crystals and bundles of herbs. Faeries favored the numbers three, four and seven and commonly used the imagery of circles or rings of various natural objects. Vampires were usually more discreet about the runes they etched into the corners of their door frames, but they were less subtle in the hired muscle they frequently kept on hand.

As for weres…

Will looked up at the crescent moon painted onto the sun bleached sign above the door and sighed, simultaneously exhausted and keyed up. Attempting to secure himself a place within a were den on the night of the full moon had been wishful thinking at best. Weres that lived in urban areas often rented space within the den in the long term, having no viable option within their apartments or shared living spaces to risk a transformation going awry. There were usually at least a few rooms available to travelers, but not always. Some were dens adopted a pack like structure and refused all strangers entirely.

As though inspired by his earlier visit to a house of God, Will found himself praying that would not be the case

“We could just go back to the boat,” Abigail offered, looking toward the horizon. The orange cast of the fading day filtered through her, making her appear to glow. The harsh light of day always made her more translucent, the sun exposing her nature in counterpoint to how the moon revealed his own.

“I can’t take that risk,” Will refuted, shaking his head. “Either I stay docked and risk escaping into the city, or I go out to sea and risk sinking her altogether. I don’t feel...centered. I need to be in a den tonight.”

“What if someone takes it?”

“The boat?” Will scoffed and reached for the door. “Hannibal can look after it.”

The entry of  _ Tregua Della Luna  _ was small and nondescript, dim for the lack of windows and bearing only a single desk where a thin faced were sat, peering intently at a small television and worrying a pen with his teeth. He was radiating the same pent up energy Will felt crawling just below his skin and Will instinctively scented him. Beta, or at least wearing a beta’s scent to mask his own. Some sort of mustelid...a weasel or a marten, perhaps. Eyes darting toward Will, the were scented him in return and straightened quickly, dropping the pen.

“ _ Buonasera _ ,  _ signore _ .  _ Posso aiutarla? _ ”

Will shook his head, grimacing at the language barrier he’d been grateful for only that morning. “Sorry, I don’t… English?”

Immediately the were’s expression closed off and he began shaking his head, waving Will off with a flippant gesture. “ _ Tutto completo. _ Full. No rooms here.”

Frustration bloomed to anger in his belly and the wolf growled at the obvious lie, eyes flashing predatory yellow in a warning to the lesser hunter. Breath catching, the were cast his eyes down and instinctively turned his head to bare his throat in submission. Gratification washed over Will at the sight, at the way his heart picked up in fear, but he wrestled back the wolf with effort, closing his eyes to take a slow, calming breath.

“Please,” he said gruffly, resisting the urge to open and close his hands. His nail beds itched to grow claws. “I can pay.”

The were hissed out a breath through his teeth, clearly angry to have been cowed so easily, and his irises swelled, appearing entirely black in the low light. “You pay  _ double _ .”

In the end, Will suspected he’d paid closer to three or four times the usual asking price, but he hardly cared, relieved to have secured himself a place to lock himself away from the human world. His room was small, but clean with thick walls of stone and a solid wooden door. Most importantly, it had a series of heavy iron rings bolted into the walls and floor, not quite wide enough to fit a hand through. A chain on the other hand…

Will dropped a heavy sack he’d brought from the  _ Nola _ inside the room unceremoniously, grimacing at the discordant jangle that rose from the contents within. This room, like the others, had no windows and no lighting, illuminated only by what light spilled in through the open door. For now he left it open, for Abigail’s sake more than his own. Though she maintained that she did not hold her death against him, the wolf still frightened her on an instinctual level. It had, after all, been the last thing she’d seen before her death. This was part of the reason he’d timed his passage across the Atlantic between the lunar cycle, though consideration was also given to the probability that he really would sink the  _ Nola _ , given the chance.

Her manner subdued and her clothing a bloodied ruin, Abigail watched as Will pulled heavy chains from the sack, each ending in a thick manacle. In his mind’s eye, his wolf sat at her side to watch reproachfully, large and imposing with a thick coat of black feathers. Both girl and wolf bore silent witness while Will ran the chains through the rings on the floor and bolted them in place.

“The sun is down,” Will warned, his voice a low rumble.

Abigail nodded, wrapping her arms about herself. “I...maybe I should stay?” she sounded doubtful even as she offered, but Will shook his head.

“It would be hard for both of us if you did. Go, Abigail… Do some sightseeing. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She huffed softly at that, giving him a small smile. “Gee, thanks. You couldn’t have found a den in a nicer area of town?” Bound as she was to Will, Abigail was limited in how far she could travel from him, but she could usually manage just over a mile in any given direction.

“Given what I just paid for this place, I probably couldn’t afford a den in the tourist district. If they even exist.”

She laughed, but it came out a little forced from whatever mixture of worry and guilt she felt at leaving him alone in a strange place. “I’ll be back as soon as the sun rises,” she promised earnestly.

Will shut the door once she’d gone, the light restricting to a thin glowing line along the floor, feeling a small measure of relief once he was alone. He had meant it when he said that it was harder for both of them with her present. The memory of Abigail’s flesh in his teeth, her blood in his throat, was always strongest during the full moon, inciting and agitating his wolf into trying for another taste.

The wolf began pacing as Will stripped out of his clothes, folding everything with a careful precision he never bothered with at any other time, an exertion of control over the beast clawing inside his chest. Naked, he drew out the last item from the bag and stared at it for a long moment before he brought it to his face, fitting the muzzle over his face and securing it. The wolf bore his teeth and snarled at this, but Will ignored the creature as he crossed the room to kneel between the two open manacles, spread just far apart that it seemed impossible he’d be able to put both of them on by himself.

It took only the slightest effort of will to thicken his nails into heavy claws and Will glared down at them for a few moments, then curled his fingers into his palms, cutting them open. Spreading his arms wide, he bent forward and smeared the blood over the inside of the manacles, the runic script carved within glowing as it activated. Laying his wrists across them, he muttered, “ _ Conprimo _ ,” and they snapped shut, trapping him in place.

For a long time, Will hadn’t needed all of this. He’d made use of were dens in that first year, though he’d never made use of chains. With the virus so new in him, just the initial transformation would leave him so exhausted that he’d simply curl up in a corner of the room until dawn. Once he’d started on suppressants, he hadn’t even needed the dens, spending his nights at home sweating through a fever, drawing what little comfort he could from the presence of his pack.

And then Will began dining at the table of Hannibal Lecter.

For the Turned, the viruses that brought them into the Other World remained partially dormant, their power diminished compared to the Born. It could - and usually did - remain that way indefinitely...unless activated by the consumption of human flesh. When Will began to fall ill some months into his unusual partnership with Hannibal, he never once suspected  _ cannibalism  _ as the root cause. Never guessed that the mounting instability of his mind and body had anything to do with the fact that the fully wakened beast within him was acting in direct conflict to his suppressants. As his body rejected the medication that was now little more than poison, his mind was set aflame, executing Hannibal’s performance like a well-trained dog.

His incarceration, surprisingly, ascribed a lack of chains during the full moon, his jailers instead simply shuffling him from his regular cage to one better suited to the wolf. More importantly, one better wired for Dr. Chilton’s voyeuristic tendencies, every minute scrutinized and documented for his dreams of posterity. Ironically, it was in captivity that the wolf was fully unleashed, unbound by Will’s humanity or the prescriptions that had kept it docile for so long. Unleashed...and unable to sink tooth or claw into anything other than his own flesh.

After Hannibal planted the key to Will’s freedom in a parking lot, Will bought his chains.

The witch who crafted them imbued his chains with a deceptively simple enchantment that Will could invoke through blood and word, binding him to human form until the spell was broken by the first light of day. If he were calm and centered in life, he could still manage to make it through the moon without the chains, but those moments of peace in his life were few and far between. Back then, nothing would have pleased Will more than to simply let the beast loose to hunt Hannibal, to artlessly rend him apart so the vampire could see just what he’d roused. But the risk of collateral damage outweighed any imagined satisfaction, so Will restrained his wolf and worked instead to lure his prey as a man...and an alpha.

All around him, the other weres of the den grunted and snarled and howled as they began their own transformations, though more than one of them cried out with a human voice, bound in chains the same as Will. The walls were solid and Will doubted the sound escaped beyond them, but within the den it carried through the cracks dividing them. Will remained stubbornly silent, even as the wolf snarled and tore at his insides, trying to twist his bones and split his sweat-slick skin to break free.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed before he heard it, the slow fall of hooves on stone. The clamor of the weres picked up in agitation at the presence of a hunter in their midst, but they went silent when Will suddenly growled, a low rumble of sound that drew soft whines of submission. In the fevered pitch of his mind, the wolf prowled forward, watching as one shadow, then another broke the glowing beam of light beneath the door. As he watched, the shadow seemed to flow under the mantle, billowing up into the form of a wizened creature crowned by heavy antlers. The wendigo considered Will, canting its head to one side and the wolf roared a challenge in answer, the sound tearing from his throat.

“No time to ward the door to your den, Will? That’s uncharacteristically careless of you,” the dark creature intoned softly, though its mouth never moved. In the fevered chambers of his mind, he could not see the vampire beyond the shadows and he snarled as it stepped toward him.

The scar on his abdomen burned with the memory of silver as the familiar scent of blood and bergamot flooded Will’s senses, though it was tinged now with leather and motor oil. He barely took notice of this as the wolf struggled anew against his bonds, snapping his teeth within the muzzle as he strained toward the alpha in his territory, the predator in his den. The wendigo watched as man and wolf warred within one flesh, both driven wild at the sight of it, and it’s blank expression somehow took on an emotion that wavered between curious interest and...pity.

A blur of movement, the wendigo surged forward and caught the wolf by the hair, holding him in an iron grip. “How cruel you are to yourself,” it scolded, gently drawing its claws over the muzzle until it found the buckles, undoing one after the other. When the last was undone, the wendigo let the constraint clatter unceremoniously to the floor. Cool fingers stroked the wolf’s cheek even as he snarled and tried to bite the offending digits. “There you are… Was it penance? Did you muzzle your wolf out of shame?”

The words washed over the wolf, who took no heed of them, driven only to use what little freedom he had gained to meet the threat posed by his challenger, his rival. But to Will in the small corner of his mind where he had only a vague awareness now, the observation rang true. He had added the mask to his full moon ritual only after Abigail’s death. Had donned the indignity first borne in his incarceration when the memories of her final moments - flesh tearing in his teeth, bones snapping in his jaws, blood flooding his throat - rose with the moon. His bloodlust bound in leather and acrylic as though the punishment could even come close to fitting the crime.

His mouth watered suddenly as the scent of clean, fresh meat under sharper notes of lemon and mustard cut through the wolf’s rage, though the subtleties of flavor were lost on him in his current state. Snarling reduced to a low growl, the wolf focused on a thin slice of raw meat held folded in the wendigo’s black fingers, watching it warily as he licked his lips. Lunging forward against the grip on his hair, his teeth snapped together audibly as he tried for the meat, growling when it was pulled just out of reach.

“Ah-ah,” the shadowy mirage of the vampire scolded. “Gently, Will. Open for me.”

Twice more the wolf tried to grab for the meat before he finally, reluctantly, opened his mouth, allowing it to be placed upon his tongue. He quickly closed his teeth around the morsel before the wendigo could take it back, growling as he chewed and swallowed. Another shaving of raw, marinated meat was already held in wait and again the wolf warily opened his mouth to be fed the treat. The tight grip on his hair gentled after the third piece and cool fingers were carding gently through his curls by the fourth.

“Good boy,” the wendigo praised and only chuckled at the low growl it received in response, feeding him long into the night.

Will woke when his shackles released with the first light of dawn and he pitched forward onto the floor. A startled groan eased out of him and he curled up, disoriented and uncertain for a moment where he was or what had happened as he pressed his overwarm forehead against cool stone.

Were den. Full moon.  _ Hannibal _ .

Breath hitching, he tensed, then raised his head to look around him, despite knowing instinctively that he was alone. Had it been a dream? Will had  _ never _ fallen asleep during the full moon before, but in the growing light of day the haze of his memories seemed painted into the landscape of his mind with a surrealist’s brush. Melted clocks of memory.

Pushing slowly upright, Will eased himself back until he was no longer resting on his knees, carefully straightening one, then the other. He sank his shoulders back against the stone wall, cold against his too-warm skin and stared at the door, trying to push past fevered hallucinations to the truth of the night’s events. Rented rooms were not domiciles by default, meaning a vampire could easily cross the threshold if steps weren’t taken to prevent such a thing. Steps that Will had very much overlooked the night before.

If he took an honest look at himself, Will was afraid he’d find that he’d done so deliberately. Sighing, he let his head rest back against the wall and licked his lips, only to falter. Lemon and mustard. A soft, shuddering gasp left him as he remembered delicate folds of meat held in fingers that seemed pale through one lens of memory and black as night through the other. Remembered those fingers pushing into his mouth again and again as he was fed.

Will had shared more than one intimate meal with Hannibal in the past. Shroudless songbirds pushed past parted lips, delicate flanks presented as proof of a hunter’s prowess, manipulations and half-truths spilling from their mouths to be replaced by cups of wine like blood. They had hunted one another across the dinner table and each thought themselves in control even as they allowed the other to work their snares. But this… 

Bringing an unsteady hand to his mouth, Will pressed his fingers lightly against his lips as a low throb of heat settled in his hips. He had  _ never _ been hand fed before. His mouth tingled with the phantom touch, gums aching, but worst was the small well of contentment that still pooled in his ribs. He felt... _ cared _ for. And clearly his wolf agreed, having been given his fill to the point that he’d fallen asleep. On a full moon. In the presence of a predator.

“Shit,” Will whispered softly in the growing twilight. He should never have come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Warnings: Implied xenophobia, mentions of past incarceration, mentions of voyeurism (Chilton), mentions of past gore/character murder (Abigail), non-sexual self-imposed bondage/humiliation (Will), D/s themes (Will/wendigo!Hannibal), hand feeding (wendigo!Hannibal to Will), dubious/lack of consent (to said hand feeding), and loss of autonomy (Will to his wolf).


	3. Calante

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here’s the end! Sorry again for keeping you all waiting, but I did make it spicier than in the original draft, so...there’s that. Also, I’ve realized that going from Google Docs to AO3 tends to add weird spaces around words that have been italicized, so forgive me if I missed removing any weird spaces.
> 
> This chapter has some more of the dialog taken from Primavera.

Will’s skin felt too small as they approached the Norman Chapel again later that morning, raw and exposed beneath the harsh light of day. Though he’d have preferred to retreat to the _Nola_ , to the solitude of the den he’d sailed across the ocean, Will felt compelled to return. Perhaps quite literally, Hannibal did have a talent for such things, but he rather thought it was his instincts, in this case. Whether it was his mind or Hannibal’s that brought them back, it was immediately clear that things were not as they had been the day before.

A number of official vehicles were parked in the courtyard of the palace, blue lights flashing over a jagged cloud of anxiety that was nearly palpable as clergy and officials moved back and forth, not quite sure what to do with themselves. Shocked...horrified. It was a sentiment that Will well remembered from the Ripper’s crime scenes, a sense memory from a lover’s perfume still lingering.

It was amazing how far one could get just by acting as though they belonged, though it surely helped everyone was clearly reeling from whatever it was they’d found. Privacy screens were still being erected as Will and Abigail slipped into the chapel, though not quickly enough that they weren’t afforded a look upon the tableau. The scent of blood, of _meat_ , hit Will as he gazed at the body - skinned, folded into a heart and impaled onto swords - and he hated that his mouth began to water. His wolf had remained with him, shadowing his steps, hovering at the edge of his vision, but now it paced intently. Lucky for Will, it was too soon after the full moon for the wolf to do anything other than gaze hungrily at the display so clearly left for _him_.

Will swallowed back a growl toward the humans that would dare to surround his offering, grateful when they finally erected the last of the fabric barriers, shielding Hannibal’s heart from view. This, of course, did nothing to conceal the _scent_ and his jaws ached with the need to _bite_. To rend flesh from bone and _gorge_ himself on the offering despite how well he’d been fed just hours ago. He wondered darkly whether a flank or two had been omitted from the sculpture for a late night carpaccio.

“Is it him?” Abigail asked quietly and like Will, she was still looking at the screens as though she could see through them, her hair pulled back to reveal her scars. It would be easy for her to walk through the fabric, to look more closely upon the morbid display, but Will knew that she would not. She might have been less conflicted in her feelings toward Hannibal, but she still struggled to see the beauty in the grotesque.

Before Will could answer what she already knew, one of the poliziotto took notice of him and approached, holding up a hand. “ _Per favore, signore. È proibito qui. La cappella è chiusa._ ”

Will shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t speak-“

“The chapel is closed,” the poliziotto repeated in English, prompting an obedient nod from Will.

Knowing he would revisit the scene again in his mind, Will turned to go, only to stop as another officer shouted something in their direction. “What did he say?” Will asked the poliziotto.

“He said, he wants to talk to you.”

The _Polizia di Stato_ looked nothing like the bullpen of his tenure in New Orleans, but the energy was familiar enough as he waited to be questioned. It makes it easier to suppress the wolf, still riled from the moon and the fresh corpse. Less content to wait when she had no reason to, Abigail had taken to wandering the rows of desks, idly peering at whatever the various poliziotti were working on. Her hair was down once more and she looked rather like a tourist among the living, like the undergrad she never got to be.

Will felt strangely calm, considering the position he now faced. He expected Jack Crawford would know exactly where he was before long, if he hadn’t gotten a notification already, and knew the man was bullheaded enough that he might just come for Will.

Wouldn’t _that_ be a fun conversation.

“ _Signor_ Graham,” a voice spoke up as a man took a seat nearby and Will’s hackles immediately rose, a growl catching in his throat. The man did not look at him directly and it was immediately clear that he had no desire to be obvious about their conversation. “Chief Investigator Rinaldo Pazzi. _Questura di Firenze._ ”

It took Will a moment to parse that and his brow furrowed slightly as he remembered that he knew Firenze by a different name. “You’re a long way from Florence.”

“You’re a long way from Baltimore,” Pazzi countered. “I read everything I can on FBI profiling methods. I’ve read all about your incarceration.”

The wolf growled again at the memory and this time, Will didn’t bother to suppress the basso rumble from leaving his throat. “Keep reading,” he said, the irritation plain in his voice. “I was acquitted.”

The inspector gave him a brief, startled look at the growl and the flash of fear in his eyes gratified Will slightly before the man overcame his hindbrain and cleared his throat. “You come to Palermo and soon, _very_ soon, a body is discovered. Sculptural in its mutilation.” When Will didn’t respond to the insinuation, Pazzi pressed on. “The priest at the _Cappella dei Normanni_ said that you’ve been spending a lot of time there.”

“I’ve been praying,” Will said dismissively, resisting the urge to bare his teeth. He needed to get himself back under control before his _official_ questioning began.

“There is some comfort in prayer,” Pazzi mused. “It leaves you with the distinct feeling you’re not alone.”

Studying the inspector, Will understood innately that whoever this man was, he _knew_ Hannibal. Or knew enough that he was going to get himself killed.

Though the official questioning about his presence at the Norman Chapel proved far less substantial than his brief conversation with Inspector Pazzi, it still managed to take the better part of the day. Part of the delay was to verify that Will had, in fact, spent his evening chained to a wall at _Tregua Della Luna_ , providing an indelible alibi he hadn’t expected to need so soon. Time also had to be given for chastisement over his lack of visa and the heavy packet of declaration forms required of non-human travelers.

Abigail was waiting for him when he at last descended toward the landing and he couldn’t help but smile at her, glad for a familiar face after hours of tedious paperwork. Will suspected that the only reason he walked out of his interview under his own power was due to the pressure of an outside entity, and so was not surprised to see that Inspector Pazzi was also waiting for him.

Leaning casually against the railing at the base of the stairs, Pazzi waited until he neared to say, “Is Will Graham here because of the body at the _cappella_ , or is the body here because of Will Graham?”

After hours of bureaucracy and providing answers to the wrong questions, hearing the _right_ question was bracing, too loud against Will’s already heightened senses. “Why are you here?” he asked bluntly.

“I’m like you,” Pazzi claimed. “I do what you do. We share the gift of imagination.” 

Studying the inspector, Will would have known that he believed his words even if he couldn’t hear the steady beat of his heart, elevated from the surety that he’d found an ally in Will Graham. There was a fevered light in his eyes, a desperation to be understood, to be _believed_ that Will was all too familiar with. Only in Will, the seed was still young, where it had clearly been festering in Pazzi for _years_ , maybe decades. Until all that remained was the shell of a man who might have been great.

“I’ve got the scars of a man who grabbed his gift by the blade,” Will warned.

“You grabbed the wrong end. Those moments when the connection is made, in that synaptic spasm of completion when the thought drives through the red fuse... _that_ is my keenest pleasure.”

“Knowing,” said Will.

“Knowing,” Pazzi affirmed. “Not feeling. Not thinking. You _know_ who murdered that man and left him in the _Cappella Palantina_. You know _what_ he is.”

“Don’t you?”

“I met him twenty years ago, yet he has not aged a day,” Pazzi said and his voice became thick with emotion. “ _Il Mostro_ , the Monster of Florence.”

Shadows had lengthened within the church by the time Will and Abigail returned to it, this time escorted by Inspector Pazzi. Though the desecrated corpse had been removed hours earlier, evidence of the ongoing crime scene investigation remained, the fluorescent spotlights providing tawdry illumination. The scent of old blood and too many latex-clad hands sampling evidence was so achingly familiar that Will felt more at home than he had in months, though the sentiment was far from comforting. Considering the skeleton inlaid into the marble floor, Will fingered the folder that Pazzi had given him as he’d left to deal with the local poliziotti, ensuring they would not be disturbed. 

Though he was glad in a way to have met Rinaldo Pazzi, to have been granted insight into an earlier chapter of Hannibal’s life, it was also a reminder of how easily he could find himself walking a similar path. Obsession embittering Will until he was old and worn and soaked in whiskey, desperate to reclaim the parts of himself that Hannibal had cut away. An abandoned, unfinished sculpture left raw and ruined.

Drawing out the photo of the mutilated body, Will studied it for a few moments and then took a breath and closed his eyes. He let the pendulum swing as he rebuilt the scene, constructing Hannibal’s heart again before him in his mind’s eye, discarding all else. Imagining the display as it had been intended, as it was meant to be viewed by Will and Abigail alone, before it was picked over by bystanders who could not hope to understand.

Opening his eyes once more, Will circled the morbid sculpture, studying it as though he were in a gallery. The feathered wolf paced alongside him and gazed at the wet, dripping flesh hungrily, salivating at the feast of which it had been robbed.

“I splintered every bone. Fractured them...dynamically. Made you malleable,” Will intoned softly. “I skinned you. Bent you, twisted you and trimmed you. Head, hands, arms and legs. A topiary.” He came to a stop before it, lifting a hand as though to touch. “This is my design.”

At his side, the wolf growled as the heart swelled grotesquely once, then again. A beating heart. Beating for Will. He backed away slowly and watched the pulsing sculpture of flesh in horror.

“A valentine written on a broken man,” he whispered.

The body shuddered and, with a snap of twine, began to pull free of the cording that held it in place, broken limbs unfolding. The swords clattered to the ground as the mutilated form came to rest on its stumps, bones twisting and cracking in a way that was all too familiar to a were. Will stumbled back toward the altar as hooves pushed themselves from the ruined stumps of flesh, a thick bramble of antlers sprouting from a headless neck. At his side, the wolf snarled, his prey now a predator, and then Will and the wolf were one form. With a roar of challenge, Will leapt upon the creature, wrestling it to the floor as he set upon the skinless flesh with tooth and claw.

“Will?”

Shuddering a little at her frigid touch against his suddenly fevered brow, Will started and leaned against the altar, panting. His teeth felt thick within his mouth and he realized they’d started to change, sharp against the swipe of his tongue. Keeping his eyes well away from her throat, Will swallowed, ashamed at his lack of control.

“I _do_ feel closer to Hannibal here,” he admitted, then scoffed softly in wry amusement. “God only knows where I’d be without him.”

“What did you see?” she asked gently.

“He left us his broken heart,” he replied, but saw that she wasn’t entirely convinced. “You have a different theory?”

“It’s just…” Abigail looked back toward the empty space where the heart had been, her hair drawn back to show the ruined mound of her ear. “Three of Swords.” At Will’s blank look, she continued, seating herself on the steps leading up to the altar. “You know, tarot cards? Oh, don’t give me that look. All teenage girls go through a tarot phase.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Will said, smiling a little as he joined her. “So what was our reading?”

“The Three of Swords shows three swords stabbed through a heart,” she began. “And you’re right, it does usually signify a broken heart. But only when it’s upright, with the swords pointed down.”

Seeing where she was going, Will gave her a thoughtful look. “So it has a secondary meaning when it’s reversed.”

Abigail nodded and gave him a look that was heartbreaking in its earnestness. “Forgiveness.”

Will’s mouth tightened and he looked away. “You still want to go with him?”

“Yes.”

For several contemplative moments, Will tried to give voice to the feelings within him, to the things he’d been struggling to face even before Hannibal ripped him open and left him to die on his kitchen floor. At last, he could only ask more questions, his voice soft, aching.

“What if no one died? What if we all left together? Like we were supposed to. After he served the lamb...where would we have gone?”

Abigail smiled sadly at the thought. “In some other world?”

Will nodded, his own smile a bittersweet twist of the mouth. “In some other world.”

She hummed and gazed upward, her eyes trailing over the gilded dome. Will wondered if she were imagining it crashing down upon them. “He said he made a place for us.”

They sat together like that as minutes passed, both imagining what that place might have been.

Their solitude was broken by Pazzi’s return as he called out, “Are you praying?” Abigail sighed, as though she found the man tiresome in his tenacity and Will wondered what she would say to know how easily he saw himself reflected there.

“Hannibal doesn’t pray,” he answered, which drew an uneasy look from the inspector.

“I wasn’t asking Hannibal Lecter.”

Will wondered how blurred that line had become as he let his eyes drift over the murals overhead. “I think my prayers would feel constricted by the saints and apostles and Jesus Pantocrator.”

“Not buoyed?”

“Not these prayers.”

The steady beat of Pazzi’s heart gave a few rabbit quick beats from the way Will was unsettling him and his wolf felt vindicated by how the inspector tried to recenter himself. “I hope my prayers escaped, flown from here to the open sky and God.”

“Praying you’ll catch him?” Will derided, getting to his feet, needing to move. The wolf was restless in him, though Will couldn’t quite discern why. “You should be praying he doesn’t capture you.”

“I didn’t head the _Questura di Firenze_ for nothing,” Pazzi scorned, as though the past-tense of that hadn’t come to a halt far earlier than he’d intended.

Will’s slow turn about the chapel came to a stop under the pulpit and he glanced down into the gated stairwell, the wolf at his side. “You couldn’t catch him when he was decades younger, what makes you think you’re going to catch him now?”

“You,” Pazzi answered firmly, confident in his answer.

Scoffing a little, Will continued to look down toward the catacombs, his nostrils flaring slightly as he scented the air. “What makes you think I want to _catch_ him?” He could feel Pazzi studying him, hear another rabbit-quick beat of unease in his heart.

“Will?” Noticing how his attention had focused, Abigail came to stand at his other side, giving him a questioning look. “What is it?”

Giving his head a slight shake, Will held tight to his wolf as he caught the faint scent of blood and bergamot. He could almost see it pool beneath the door in evidence, spreading over the stone much as his own blood had spilled over Hannibal’s kitchen floor, mixing indiscriminately with Abigail’s. With careful intent, Will turned back to Pazzi.

“If you could possibly be content, I would suggest you let _il Mostro_ go.”

Anger flushed red upon the inspector’s face, his heart beating faster now. “Can’t do that any more than you can.”

“He’s going to kill you, you know,” Will warned. “Usually right about these things.”

Stubbornly determined to remain on the path of imminent destruction, Pazzi gave Will a firm, too-knowing look and pressed on. “He let you know him. He sent you his heart. Where has he gone now?”

“He hasn’t gone anywhere,” Will told him with a faint smile and heard Abigail’s soft gasp before she hurried down the steps to the door. “He’s still here.”

Rather than attempt to find a clergy member at the late hour and risk losing their prey, Pazzi broke the lock, flashing Will a quick grin and murmuring, “Better to ask forgiveness,” before he shoved the door open.

Abigail had tried to pass through it and found herself repelled by the consecrated ground that was not her own resting place, so she watched anxiously as they set out on their hunt. Will gave her as comforting a look as he could manage with his wolf so close to the surface now, incited by the thought of tracking his prey. He couldn’t admit to her that he was grateful he would be walking this path alone.

Without a word passed between them, Will and Pazzi took opposing routes at the first split in the corridor, the latter drawing his gun. There was little light afforded to them among the Punic stone, lit only by candles whose wicks flickered alight seemingly at random. Will had no doubt that Hannibal would have lit these himself and was unsurprised to see Pazzi instinctively follow the light.

Parting his lips, Will drew in a deep breath, rolling the scent of the catacombs over his tongue as he searched for his prey. The mummified corpses about him smelled only of dust, their edible parts long expired, which helped to keep the wolf focused. Conversely, Hannibal’s scent was _everywhere_ , as though he’d spent the day pacing deliberately through the maze of corridors. The richness of it after so long apart was like a tangible thing, a river of blood he had to wade through even as it pressed in on him from all sides, sliding over his skin.

Deeper and deeper Will went and the stone became newer in his wake, as though he were propelling himself through time, until suddenly he was met with a bare bulb that seemed jarring in its modernity. From deeper in the maze of catacombs and crypts, Will picked up the sound of footfall, slow and unhurried, and the wolf howled. For once, Will allowed it, letting the eerie sound echo out around him, reverberating off the stone in challenge to the alpha he hunted.

Spurred into movement, Will loosed the leash and let the wolf run, propelling them through the underground with a deep growl. The thrill of the hunt, of the _chase_ , rushed through Will’s veins, until he had no doubt that his scent had become as tantalizing to Hannibal as the vampire’s was to himself.

The passage he’d been following opened suddenly to a wide junction surrounded by branching corridors like the center of a spider’s web. Wide pillars hosting shriveled corpses of dust and earth spaced out across the junction and the sound of footsteps reverberated off of them, scattering them in a ricochet to his senses. The hairs on the back of his neck rose as he paced forward through the pillars and he spun suddenly toward one of the passages just as Pazzi burst through it and skidded to a halt, gun raised instinctively toward Will.

His breath caught in instinctive fear when Will’s eyes caught the light and reflected it back at him, the rabbit-quick beat of his heart too loud in Will’s ears. “ _S-signor_ Graham…”

Will lifted his chin slightly, scenting the air, but couldn’t detect the telltale odor of lead. “Is that silver, _Commodatore_?” 

The inspector hesitated a bit too long, then eased his finger from the trigger, canting the weapon down. “Just a precaution.”

“Silver bullets don’t mean much to a vampire.”

“Neither do lead ones, but I expect they’ll hurt just the same.”

A small smile came to Will’s lips as he regarded the man, seasoned in his movements, yet riding the edge of fear all the same. Will, on the other hand, felt calmer than he had in months. “You shouldn’t be down here alone.”

Another uptick in the staccato of the inspector’s heart. “I’m not alone. I’m with you.”

Will made a soft, amused sound at that, watching his wolf pace around the man. “You don’t know whose side I’m on.”

Pazzi hesitated at that, looking him over cautiously. “What are you going to do when you find him?” he asked. “Your _il Mostro_.”

Letting his gaze drift among the pillars, he listened to the beat of Pazzi’s heart, then beyond it, searching for his prey again. “I’m curious about that myself,” he admitted. The question had haunted him all the way across the Atlantic, despite how much Will had tried not to think about it.

What _would_ he do when he finally found Hannibal? When he met him without lies or chains or manipulations left between them? Capture...kill...or _claim._

“You and I carry the dead with us, _Signor_ Graham,” Pazzi pressed, as though trying to remind Will of a goal they’d never agreed upon. “We _both_ need to unburden. There’s no arguing the point.”

Will glanced back at him, his expression cold, but calm. “Why don’t you carry your dead back to the chapel before you count yourself among them.”

The click of Pazzi’s throat was audible in the quiet as Will walked away from him, toward the darkest path. “You’re already dead...aren’t you?” he asked, low and hoarse.

“ _Buonanotte, commendatore,_ ” Will replied softly in answer. And maybe he was...it was just as likely that he sought his own death here in the catacombs, though the wolf bared his teeth beside him at the thought.

Distantly, he could hear Pazzi turn back toward the chapel, but Will’s full attention had turned once again toward his quarry. The scent of blood and bergamot was fresher now, pulling at him, but no matter how quickly he moved or how far he went, his prey remained elusive. Like chasing a shadow in the darkness.

“Hannibal,” he called suddenly as Will realized he was going to lose him, the name a harsh echo against the still and silent stone. The air of the catacombs seemed suddenly stifled, as though the collected dead had drawn breath and held it in wait. 

He knew...beyond any doubt Will _knew_ that Hannibal was listening.

“I forgive you.”

The absolution, while hushed, seemed to ring upon the stone like the toll of a bell, disappearing into the darkness. A forlorn feeling of loss swelled painfully in his chest as he waited, desperate in his final gamble. Then at last, he felt the air move at his back, the soft scrape of a leather sole against stone.

“Do you?” Hannibal asked him softly, suddenly so close that his breath brushed over Will’s ear in a caress.

The air was charged now, leaving them poised upon a precipice, a great cliff over a dark, roiling sea. The feathered wolf sat before Will, but rather than snarl a warning to the predator at his back, the dark beast merely watched, and waited. Waited for Will to decide.

Capture. Kill. Claim.

In the sordid soirée of their relationship, Will had provided Hannibal with the makings of a meal on more than one occasion. Bass, bluegill, and the occasional farm-raised trout if he were feeling particularly ill-tempered, all leading up to the day when he slid human flank steaks across Hannibal’s marble countertop. But in all of that, Will had never offered the one meal that would actually _sustain_ the life of a vampire.

Until now.

Hannibal drew in a sharp breath as Will slowly, deliberately bared his throat to him, knowing the vampire would know it for the offering it was, rather than the submission it might imply. Fingers tangled in his curls as they had the night before, Hannibal’s other arm becoming an iron band about his waist, over the scar he’d left there.

“Be very certain, Will. I cannot allow another betrayal.”

A soft, reckless laugh punched out of Will, for he had absolutely no doubt in his mind that they would betray one another until they found their eventual bloody end. It simply wasn’t enough to dissuade him from wanting Hannibal anyway.

“I came here for you,” he admitted aloud for the first time. “I came for _you_ , Hannibal.”

The vampire’s grip tightened fractionally and then Will was crying out from the sudden, sharp sting of pain at his throat. He could _feel_ Hannibal’s teeth in him, tearing into him and then came a soft suction that Will could feel _everywhere_ , in his jaw and his fingers and the base of his cock. A startled, desperate moan spilled out to him and with one hand he gripped at Hannibal’s arm where it held him up, the other reaching back to his wool-clad thigh, his thickening nails digging into the meat of it. Hannibal hissed softly at this, then fit his mouth more firmly over the wound he’d made and sucked again, drawing Will’s blood into his mouth in slow pulls.

His body was on fire, awash with sensation that hovered between the point of pain and pleasure. Panting around longer, sharper teeth, Will felt almost on the verge of transformation and he released Hannibal’s thigh suddenly to press the heel of his hand against his groin. He was able to provide himself only a few seconds of glorious pressure before the vampire caught hold of his wrist and drew his hand away.

“ _Hannibal_ ,” Will snarled, slurring the name slightly on the edge of his wolf’s grin.

“Not yet,” Hannibal chastised in a dark promise, mouthing at the stubbled corner of his jaw. “Not when you’re like this.” He pressed the flat of his tongue against the wound, licking at it until the bleeding stopped, his venom encouraging the rapid regeneration of Will’s cells. “If you are to seek your pleasure on my behalf, it will be without any uncertainty as to the reason. Your beautiful mind frighteningly clear with your own intentions.”

Will felt a shiver go down his spine at the words, settling warm in his hips as Hannibal released him. He swayed forward a little, less from the blood loss than from the weight of his indecision lifted away, catching himself against the wall of the passage. Lifting fingers to his neck, he touched the sensitive new skin and looked back at Hannibal, seeing him for the first time since the vampire had walked out of his kitchen all those months ago.

Hannibal’s hair was disheveled, hanging into his eyes like it had that final, bloody night, but Will got the sense that this was less to do with their chase through the catacombs and more a lack of effort. A careless disregard toward appearances now that his person suit had been torn open. His clothing was still expensive and bore its own sort of elegance, but the auburn lamb-skin and grey wool served function over fashion. For the first time, Will could see how much what had happened still affected the vampire, and it eased something in his chest.

“Is it always like this?” he asked hoarsely, uncertain whether he meant the overwhelming intimacy of bloodletting or the ache of reunion after bitter betrayal.

A small smile came to the vampire’s face and he held out his hand to Will and his wolf. “With you, dear Will, I believe it will be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Warnings: Canon typical descriptions of gore, canon typical murder, implied cannibalism, canon typical disturbing imagery, bloody blood blood, vampires drinking blood, and sexualization of blood drinking.

**Author's Note:**

> And they all lived happily ever after...or did they?
> 
> Thank you for reading and for your feedback! Your comments keep me writing when my mind tells me I shouldn’t bother.


End file.
